Tucan Travel Overland Vehicles

A Brief Introduction to Overland Travel

Overland travel is first started by people filled with the spirit of exploration and discovery. It was founded by adventurous people who wanted to push their understanding of the world to new boundaries and see what lay beyond their own backyard.

As a form of travel, overland tours took off in popularity in the 60s and 70s with the creation of the hippie trail from Europe to the exotic east. Air travel was still prohibitively expensive, so young people took to the road in droves, in brightly-coloured combi vans, buses, cars and motorbikes to explore the enigmatic cultures of Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and India.

As the popularity of Overland travel took off, the first overland tour companies, began running coach services for the adventurous, often starting in London and finishing in Nepal or India. The era of the hippie trail came to a close with the coming of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, but the yearning for discovery of the world's cultures remained in many travellers and new routes began to open up.

What can you expect today?

A far cry from the early days of overland travel where there was no internet, no guide books and very little in the way of organised tours, travellers can now travel in the relative luxury of custom-built overland trucks with tour companies pre-arranging the logistics for their trip. While you are no longer required to 'rough it' like back in the day, overland tours still require an adventurous mind-set and a willingness to involve yourself, both with the local people and your fellow travellers.

Overland tours require participation. As a member of a small overland group, you help with cooking and buying supplies when necessary. Food is often bought at local markets and cooked at the camp site. Fresh, local produce including fresh fruit, vegetables and meat is readily available and there's generally plenty of it.

About Overland Trucks

While it may not seem that important from the comfort of your home, your overland vehicle is an essential consideration when choosing an overland tour. Vehicles vary from the more comfortable forward facing kind to those that face inwards. Other companies still use vehicles without windows while others, like us, have big windows that open and close to the elements.

About our Overland Trucks

We don’t like to boast but our trucks are the best. You can spot them from a mile away, they take the bumpy roads in their stride and their size makes them nice and spacious, even for a big group.

We see these trucks as part of the family. We take good care of them and look upon them with affection. Every truck has been named after a member of the Tucan Travel family and it won’t take long for you to develop an attachment to this larger than life group member.